Miniature Collections Or Giant Hordes?

Q: How do I choose which miniatures to buy for my campaign?

Another outstanding question and one that I love answering!

Firstly, there are two schools of thought when it comes to miniatures. Some people consider the use of miniatures "old school" and choose not to use them at all, relying instead on pure imagination and story telling to act out great battles and encounters. The other side of the Silver Piece the Bard just lifted off a villager is that NOT using miniatures is "less than effective" and that using them eases the confusion among both players and DMs as they try to keep up with who/what is where and when. Personally, I use them and mostly for that ease (plus I love seeing the looks on everyones faces when I drop a pack of beasts in front of them).

Picking your minis for a campaign can be a little tricky, especially if you want isn't available on the market in your price range... if at all. Step 1 is to keep in mind what level your players are and in turn what level the encounters need to be. Starting on page 92 of "Xanathar's Guide To Everything" there are tables upon tables of random encounters you can build based on levels. For a beginning DM this is a great way to get ideas on how o build your adventures and what minis you may want/need. You do NOT need minis for every random encounter. Pick and choose the ones your players may like and go from there. Limit yourself on options a little, at least when starting out.

You can also find online tools ( such as this calculator "http://dhmholley.co.uk/encounter-calculator-5th/") to help you build an encounter and then fill in the gaps as needed. Remember, as a DM you can ALWAYS fudge numbers to make it fit too. As an example: Normally a Bheur Hag (Volo's Guide to Monsters Pg. 160) us a Challenge 7 (2,900 XP) monster. For 6 characters at level 1 this is an EXTREMELY deadly encounter and probably not your best choice. You could argue, however, that something has recently happened to the Hag causing her to be much more weakened and fudge her numbers. Regularly her stats read as 13+1 16+3 14+2 12+1 13+1 16+3 AC17 HP91. Just dropping her to an AC13 helps a lot, but level characters aren't going to be doing a lot of damage so dropping her HP is going to be necessary as well. After editing the numbers to suit the player level and encounter my Hag might look more like an AC13 HP30 and I would edit her stats to go along with that. It takes a lot of work, but is definitely doable.

Step 2 is to take the story and where your characters are, or will be, in mind. You don't want players on the top of a mountain to have an encounter with an Aboleth because that just makes no sense. When looking for minis for your campaign start small with encounters they are most likely to have first. In my current campaign I am running the characters started out in an abandoned Dawrvish Mine now inhabited by Goblins. So, I knew from the start I would need a small army of Goblins. What would go with Goblins? Goblins are known to ride Worgs, so I got ahold of a couple of them as well. Was there going to be a leader of this band of Goblins? Yup, and i wanted it to be more dangerous than a Goblin, so I bought a Hobgoblin as the leader. Just for fun I wanted a wandering creature in the mines as well, which entered from a cliff-rimmed beach, so I also bought a giant spider which I occasionally rolled for as a random encounter while the characters explored. That's it. Those are what I needed for my first adventure.

Step 3 is an in-between step that you don't necessarily have to do unless needed. In my first adventure I knew that characters would be meeting an NPC who would be fighting with them to get out of the mines. I had already built the NPC so I went online and bought a mini that would suit that NPC. The two sites I use for minis are www.trollandtoad.com and https://www.miniaturemarket.com.

Step 4 is also an optional step. Try to figure out where your characters may go next. Will there be a random encounter? Will there be an encounter that is more plot related? Will they be going on a side quest? I try to give my players the illusion that I'm coming up with encounters on the fly based on their random (and they usually are VERY random) choices, while actually being a prepared as possible. I plan out at least 5 random encounters with beasts and 2 with humanoids. This gives me options if the characters decide to take off in some random direction. I can then use these encounters to move the story along.

In summary: try to have some semblance of a plan, keep your players in mind as well as their levels, keep the story in mind, be flexible but prepared. That is my advice. Obviously, this is how I run my campaign and it may not work for everyone, but I hope it helps and points you in the right direction.

----- Remember to drop a comment and let me know your thoughts on this blog entry and what YOU do to choose your minis. All comments are always appreciated. -----